Seed-Babies

SEED-BABIES

BY

MARGARET WARNER MORLEY

Author of “A Song of Life,” “Life and Love,” etc.

Boston’, U.S.A., and London
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

Cbc Atbtnacum \)xtaa
1898

Copyright, 18%

By MARGARET WARNER MOBLEY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

It will add very much to their
interest in seeds if the children
have peas, beans, nuts, etc., to
look at as they read about them.

SEED-BABIES.

BEANS.

L

“Well, I never! ”

Jack said that because all the beans he had
planted were on top of the ground.

Jack was only six years old, and not
very well accpiainted with beans.

No wonder he was surprised to find them
on top of the ground when he had tucked
them so snugly out of sight in the brown
earth only a few days before.

Jack looked at his beans and began
to get red in the face.

^ He looked a little as if he were
going to cry.

“ When
Ko comes
I’ll just
p u n c h
him! ” he
said at last.

2

SEED-BABIES.

For who could have uncovered his beans but his
brother Ivo?

For Ko would rather tease than eat his dinner, —
except when there was chocolate pudding for dessert.

Ko’s real name was Nicholas, but it took too long to
say that, so Jack called him Ko for short.

Jack picked up a bean to replant it,
and what do you think had happened ?
Something had. for it did not look as
it did when he first put it in the
ground.

It had turned green to begin with.
Jack had planted white beans.

He knew they were white all through,
for lie had bitten a good many in two
to see how they looked inside. And now
the coat on the outside, that stuck so
tightly at first, had peeled half off, and the bean was

green !

%

Something more had happened. — a little white stem
had come out of the bean and gone into the ground.

Jack was so surprised at all this that he forgot he
was angry at Ko, and when his brother came up only
told him to look.

Ko tried to pick up a bean too, but it was fastened
cjuite firmly in the ground.

BEANS.

3

“They’re growing,” said Ko.

“'Did you pull them up?” asked Jack.

“ No, indeed! ” said Ko.

“ They must have pulled themselves up,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Ko, “that’s it. They grew so fast they
pulled themselves right up.”

Then Jack sprinkled earth over
them until he could not see them,
and went away.

In two or three days they
were all on top of the ground
again!

“Well, well, well!” said Jack,

“ they don't know anything — to
keep unplanting themselves that
way!”

But now he could not pick up
any of the beans without tearing

loose the stout little stem with roots at the end, that had
gone down into the ground.

“You bean,” he said, tapping one on its green head,—
for they had grown very green now, — “ you bean, I
shall plant you deep enough this time; you will die
and not grow at all if you don’t stay still in the
ground.”

At this the bean smiled.

4

SEED-BABIES .

A bean cannot smile, you say ? Oh well, that is
what nearly everybody would say, but I can tell you,

a great many people do not know about
beans, and I am sure that bean smiled.

‘‘If I did stay still in the ground, how
could I grow?" asked the bean.

You think beans cannot talk?

Well, as I said before, a great many
people do not know about beans; and
V i whether they can talk or not, this bean
asked Jack how it could grow if it stayed
still in the ground. And what is more, Jack was
“ stumped," as the boys say, by the question, and could
not answer.

Of course nothing that stayed perfectly still could
grow.

“ But why don’t you send up a little stem and
let the bean that I planted stay planted ? ” asked
Jack.

“I will tell you," said the bean; and if by this time
you do not believe beans can talk, you may as well not
read another word of this story.

Talking beans are just as true as “Cinderella," or
“ Hop-o-my-thumb," or “Little Red Riding-IIood, or “Jack
the Giant Killer,” and those people.

Of course everybody knows how true they are.

BEANS.

So Jack’s bean said, “I will tell you,” and then asked,
“Are your hands clean ?”

“They're fair to middling," said Jack, looking at his
hands, and for the first time in his life wishing he had
washed them.

“ Oh well," said the bean, “ if they are not sticky it
won't matter. I am going to let you look at me, but 1
don't want you to pull me apart, either on purpose or
by accident.”

“ I won’t," said Jack.

“Well, then, very gently open this green part that
you planted when it was white, and that wont stay under
the ground, and look.”

Jack did so.

He found the green part was split in two halves, and
right between the halves, fastened at the
end where the root went down, were stowed
away two pretty green leaves.

“My!” said Jack.

“Well, I guess so!" said the bean, rather proudly.
“You see I have these little leaves packed away even
when I am white.

“But then they are also white and very, very small.

“ You very likely would not even see them, at least
not with your own eyes.

“You would see something if you knew where to look,

6

SEED-BABIES.

but you would not see two leaves without the help of
a magnifying glass.

“But I know they are there all the time."

BEANS.

7

II.

“ Tell me more,” said Jack. He thought it the jolliest
thing in the world, as it certainly was, to
have the beans talk to him.

The bean was as pleased as he was, for
it liked to talk, and it could not always
find so good a listener.

So it said, “ I keep my two white little
leaves very closely packed away between my
two big hard white cotyledons.’’

“ Your two big hard white what?” asked Jack.
Cotyledons.”

My! ” said Jack.

Y"es, cotyledons. YY>u probably did not
know there were two; you thought it was just
one mass of white stuff. Probably you did not
know my cotyledons had a coat, either.”

“ Y'es,” said Jack, “ I knew that. It tears
open when you grow. And I knew you split
in two, only I did n’t know you called your¬
self cotyledons.”

“ We don’t,” said the bean, with a funny
little laugh, “ but it is no matter what we call ourselves,
— grown-up men call our seed-leaves cotyledons.”

v

U

U

8

SEED-BABIES.

“ I would rather know what you call them,” said Jack.
“ Oh, I can't tell you that; nobody can. But why don’t

you ask me what I mean by my seed-
f\ leaves?”

- ==z: “I think you mean the two halves

that come apart with the two little
' leaves between them,” said Jack.

^ “Yes, so I do; but there are

more than two leaves between;
there is a little end that grows

down and makes the root.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “I know.”

“Hush!” said the bean, “you don’t, know anything
about it. You must n’t tell me } r ou know. You must just
keep on asking me about myself.”

“You are cross,” said Jack.

“I am not.” said the bean, “I am only right.”

“Well, what shall I ask?” de¬
manded Jack.

kk Stupid! if you have nothing to
ask, I have nothing to tell you, so
good-by.”

“Oh, don’t,” begged
Jack. “I will ask
and ask and ask, only
don't stop telling.”

BEANS.

9

“ Well, ask away,” said the bean.

* k What- makes you turn green ? What T~
makes you so hard before you ’re planted ?

How do you know w r hen it’s time to __
wake up ? Where do — ” ^

“ Just hear the Of? j Y

boy!” interrupted j i

the bean, “asking * C ** W

a dozen questions and not waiting for an
answer to any of them ! Why don’t you
stop to take breath?”

“Why,” said Jack, “now you can answer
a long time.”

“ There's something in that,” returned
© the bean, “ and I will tell you about turning
You turn green — ”

I don't,” said Jack.

Don’t interrupt. I turn green because
cannot digest my food unless I do, and how am I to live

green

W;f

i h yf

J. . r i t)

without food ? Even
you could not digest ^
“I’m glad I don't
my food,” said Jack ; then \
“ There you go again,
first set not answered yet.

you could not live if

your food.”

*/

turn green when I digest
asked, “What do you eat?”
(i** another question and the
I get my food from the air and

the earth. I am fond of gas, and when I turn green

10

SEED-BABIES.

I can digest it. You know the air is nothing but gas.
Well, I can eat air.'

9 j

cr

C

e-

;fr

'is-

€

%

“I’m glad I don't have to,'' said Jack,
thinking of chocolate pudding.

“Oh, of course, you prefer much coarser
things, but don't interrupt. I am fond of
air, and the little leaves that I have stowed
away need much food, so I just grow up to
the top of the ground where there is to be
found air and sunlight, and then I let my
two little leaves draw all the good out of my
cotyledons.

“ They have air, too, and water, and the
root sends them food, but they eat all the

jy good out of my cotyledons as well, and that
i JyA) is why they grow so fast.

“Look there ! see that bean plant over
there!

The cotyledons are all withered and
look like dried leaves; that is what they
are, just dried leaves.

“That is the way mine will look
~ A ^ some day.

ClIOCOLATK J

pudding. “ But I don't care, for more leaves

ay ill grow above the first two, and 1 shall have plenty of
stem and many leaves; and after a while beautiful flowers

BEANS.

11

will come, and then lots of new seeds will grow from my
flowers. You see how it is, don’t you? I am

just the bean

baby.

“ Y o u &PV A \
n&i $ h ' !

are a great
talker for a

baby,” said ^

Jack. 1 ^

“ Oh, yes,

you can’t understand that, of

before, some
$

people do not
k n o w a b o u t
beans.”

tk You say that pretty often,”
said Jack.

But the bean only laughed and
replied, “Well, it's true, whether
you like it or not.”

course, but as I said

12

SEED-BABIES.

TIL

“Can you tell me about peas?" Jack asked the bean
next day. “ I planted some and they stayed in the

ground."

“ Perhaps I can." the bean replied,
but they are different from us, and I have
told you enough."

“ Well. I suppose after what you have told
me, I can find out something about peas for

myself." said Jack.

%/ *

“ Of course you can," replied the bean.
“Some people never know anything, because
they cannot find out without being told."
“Good-by," said Jack politely, “I am very
y much obliged to you"; but the bean was not so
. // polite as Jack, for it did not answer at all.

Perhaps, however, that is the polite way among
beans.

Jack was still thinking about beans when he
went into the house and saw a pan of dried Lima
beans soaking for dinner.

He took one up and slipped it out of its white jacket,
and it fell apart in his hand, so that lie saw quite plainly
the little plant packed away at one end.

BEANS.

13

“It must like water better than I do —
to swell itself that full," said he to himself,
for the soaked beans were about twice as
large as the dried ones.

“Couldn’t grow a bit without it," said
Jack's bean in a cross voice, popping from
between his fingers back into the pan of
water, “ we have begun to grow, we have."

In spite of its crossness Jack felt a little
sorry that it was to be eaten for dinner instead
of growing in some damp and lovely place,
“but," he thought, and no doubt he was
right, “maybe among beans it doesn’t
matter if they are eaten. I don’t know
beans,” he added, screwing up one eye.

“Why do we eat beans?” he asked
his father at dinner.

“ Because they are nearly all starch,
and starch is good food,” his father
replied.

“Does the baby bean eat
starch?" Jack asked.

“Oh, yes," his
father said, “ the baby
bean grows on the
starch stored up in the bean. The little plant is stowed

14

SEED-BABIES.

1

<gf
-))

away in one corner of the bean, and lives on the starch of
the cotyledons when it first begins to grow.”

“Yes, I know," said Jack, “but don’t you
think it is rather hard on the bean for us to
eat it?’’

“No,” his father replied, “there would not
be room for all the beans to grow. Some
would have to die anyway; and if the bean
could understand, I am sure it would be very
glad to give us food.”

“ Perhaps it does understand,” said Jack
thoughtfully. “Beans are great thinkers.”

“If that is so,” said papa, smiling, “ they
must be a little proud to know that all tli6
animals depend upon the plant life foi
food."

vs

©)

“I don’t see how that is.” said Ko.

“ Well, 1 will tell you,” said his father.
“Plants can eat gases and other minerals.”

“Yes, I know
that," said Jack, re¬
membering what the
bean had told him
about it.

“They change
these things into plant material,” his father went on, “and

BEANS.

15

people, who cannot eat earth and air, eat the plants, and
so all are able to live.”

“But we might live on meat,” said Jack.

“But what makes meat?” asked his father. “What do
the animals we use for meat live on ? ”

“Plants,” Jack replied, nodding his head to show he
understood.

“Yes, plants; and so, first or last, all the animals
depend upon the plants for their lives.”

“If we keep on we shall knoAv beans,” Ko said to Jack
in a very sleepy tone of voice that night. But Jack,
tucked up in his crib, was already in the Land of Nod.

SWEET PEAS.

“You don't seem to have to come out of
the ground to get started." Jack said to his
sweet peas one day.

“ Oh, no," was the reply.

“But why? Don't you need air and light?"

“Yes; but we have enough food stored /underground
to start us, and, as a matter of fact, we ^ prefer to lie
still and let our clean, fresh leaves goout into the
world.'

“ Do garden peas act the same way

--i j\\. \ 0Jack, very much

as sweet peas?" asked
awake by this time to
going on in the ( \

“ Yes,” the sweet 1

as musical as a sum-
garden peas are our
try cousins, as it were;
way we do, and we are
“ Do you have
d eman ded J aek,
the ground to have
with his new

what was

Y

^ garden,
pea said, in a voice
? mer brook. “ Yes, the
cousins, — our coun-
they grow in the same
very fond of them,
a baby in your seed, too?'
sitting down cross-legged on
a good, comfortable chat
friends.

SWEET TEAS.

17

in the
come over
would be

afraid ’ ? ”
severely,
to rebel

“My seed is a baby pea,’' was the reply.

“ Between my two round cotyledons you can see
the rest of the infant tucked away, ready when
warmth and moisture come, to spring up and grow
into a vine.

“Yes, that’s so,” Jack said, slowly; then
added, “Ain't you afraid to stay out
garden all night?” It had
him all of a sudden that he
very much afraid.

“Do you mean, ‘Aren't you
asked the pea, politely but a little
“Y"e-e-s,” said Jack, half a mind
? against having to correct bad grammar out of
r_ school, but not wanting to offend the pea either;
“Aren’t you afraid?”

“No, I am not afraid. We plants love the
night-time. We can see as well as in the day-time.”
Jack wanted to ask if they could see at any
time without eyes, but feared it might be
considered impolite.

-^-4 The pea replied to his thought.

“ Not as you see, but we have a way of
knowing about things that you see. I cannot
‘explain how it is, for you are not a pea and
could not understand.”

18

SEED-BABIES.

“Can you hear?” asked Jack.

“Not as you hear. But we have a way of knowing
about things that you hear. I cannot explain how it is,
for you are not a pea and could not understand.”

“Can you smell, or taste, or feel? persisted Jack.

“ Not as you smell, or taste, or feel. But we have a
way of knowing about things that you smell, and taste, and
feel. I cannot explain how it is, for you are not a pea and

could not understand.''

~ I don’t seem to know peas
either,” muttered Jack to himself.

“ No, you don't know about peas.
If you did, you would know

more than the President of the
United States and the Principal
of your school put together.”
“My!” said Jack.

“You never will know all about

peas,” the pea went on. / v
“You can know a good ^
many things about them,
as well as about other
things, that
will be
good for

SWEET TEAS.

19

you, if you keep your eyes open and your brain
working.”

••How they all like to teach a feller,” thought Jack, as
the pea settled down as though through talking.

-Teach a fellow” said the pea, rousing up; “teach a
boy would sound better yet.”

“ Teach a boy,” corrected Jack meekly, and then
walked off and found Ko, and told him all the pea had said.

“ You dreamed it, you silly,” said Ko, with a very fine
air, for he was two years older than Jack, and sometimes

liked to remind his brother of
this fact. u YY>u dreamed it,
and anyway 't ain't polite to lis¬
ten to what people think”
No,” said Jack, \ ^ politely

just

but a little severely,
as the pea had said it \
him, 66 it is n't polite, but
then that may¬
be polite among peas,

— you don’t know peas,
you must
remember
that.”

to

PEANUTS.

“ Tell you what,” said Ko, c< there’s a baby in this
peanut."

Jack looked, and sure enough, flattened down in one
corner of the peanut for safe keeping,
and looking very much like the bean
baby, w r as a young peanut baby.

“Let’s plant it,” said Jack.

“It’s been roasted,'' said Ko,

“you don’t suppose a roasted baby
would grow, do you?”

“ No," said Jack, “ 1 'm afraid it
would n’t; let s ask father."

“ Father says to plant it and see,"

Jack said, running back a few
minutes later. “ He says he 'll get
us some raw ones in town to-morrow,
and we can plant both kinds.”

“ Of course it would be silly to
plant a roasted one." said Ko.

“Why would it?" asked the pea¬
nut in his hand.

PEANUTS.

21

“Oh, because — it would,” was the wise reply.

“You 're dead, you know,” said Jack, “and dead things
can't grow.”

MW

“Am I dead? Then how can I talk?”

“ It is talking,” said Ko, very much surprised as soon
as he stopped to think about it.

“Anything can ask questions, whether
it is dead or alive,” said Jack, and a very
wise speech it was, though you,
who do not know as much as
you will if you live to be
wiser, may not think so.

“ Why can’t I grow ? ” re¬
peated the roasted peanut.

“Well, can you?” asked Ko.

“ No, I can’t. Now answer my question.
Why can’t I?”

“I don’t know,” said Ko, meekly.

“It’s time you found that out,” said the
peanut, snappishly. “ It is so easy for you
to say a thing is so or isn’t so, and all the time you don’t
know anything about it.”

“ I hope you ’re cross enough,” said Ko, firing up.

But Jack said, “ Never mind, Ko, the poor thing has
been roasted; if you had been roasted so you could n’t ever
grow, you might be cross, too.”

22

SEED-BABIES.

“Me, roasted! I’m not a peanut,” said Ko, indig¬
nantly.

“ If you knew as much as you never will know, you
would understand that there is not such a great difference
between us as you think,” said the peanut grimly; “and
as to being roasted, that is by no means the worst thing
that could happen in the world.”

“What would be worse," asked Jack, curiously.

“I cannot tell you, you would not understand,” said the
peanut.

“ They all seem to think alike about our understanding,”
said Jack.

“les,” said Ko, “they think they know everything.”

MELONS AND THEIR COUSINS.

“Where did you get it?" Jack asked, as he went into
the yard and found Ko with a slice of ripe watermelon in
his hand.

“Mother gave it to me; there ’s one for you,” he said,
pointing to another slice on a plate in the grass.

“Save the seeds,” said Ko. Then for a few minutes
nothing was to be heard but a funny little juicy sound, and

when this ceased, what do you think? There was nothing
left of the watermelon but just the rind and some flat,
black seeds. .

Ko handed a seed to Jack.

“What shall I do with it?” asked Jack.

24

SEED-BABIES.

“Take off its jacket,” said Ko, speaking as though he
thought Jack a little deaf.

So Jack took the melon seed and peeled off
its tough, black coat.

“ Now take off its shirt.” said Ko; and Jack
slipped off a delicate, silky covering.

“Now look inside,'' ordered Ko.

“ See! ” said Jack, as he did so. The melon
seed had fallen into two parts in his hand, just
like the bean, and there in one end was the baby
plant lying close to the cotyledons.

“ Do you suppose it would grow ? ” asked Jack.
“Of course it would," said Ko.

“How do you know I would?” asked the
melon seed.

“Well, wouldn’t you?” asked Ko. He was
used to stopping Jack’s questions this way when
||/ he could not answer them, and had not yet
\ learned the difference between Jack and a logical
jh vegetable.

/ “Yes, I would.” said the melon. “Now

answer my question: How do you know 1
would ? ”

“Because,” said Ko, confidently, “melon seeds generally

do.”

“Do they? How many of those you planted came up?”

MELONS AND THEIR COUSINS.

25

Ko blushed.

“You see you don’t know anything about it. If you
cared to be wise, you would find out how I grow, — if you
could; then you would know why I don't grow and how
to help me."

“That is so," said Ko, “and some day when I have
plenty of time, I mean to find it out if I can."

“Let s go to the garden now and see if we can find out
anything about it,” said Jack. “I know where there are
some jolly big melons.”

“All right,” said Ko, and off they went.

But they did not stay long ; the melons just lay on the
ground and said not a w’ord.

“Stupid things! Come along,” said Ko.

So they went along, and the first thing Jack did was to
step on a ripe cucumber.

“ Ouch! ” he cried, and Ko laughed.

Then Jack said, “Let’s make boats.”

Of course I am not going to tell you

what they did then, because everybody
knows they just took cucumbers, and

-//

cut them open lengthwise, and

26

SEED-BABIES.

scraped out the insides, and whittled out sticks, and stuck
them in for masts, and pinned on paper sails.

They sailed their boats on the duck pond, and most of
them turned over, and some sank. For the wind blew, and
Ko said there was a gale on.

If you think it is easy to make cucumber boats sail in a
high wind, or in any wind, or in no wind, you just try it.

Cucumber boats do not like to sail.

Jack put a lot of seeds in his pocket ; they were rather
damp and sticky, but then a boy’s pocket expects such
things.

AY hen the whole fleet had come to grief, the boys sat on
the edge of the pond, and Jack pulled a handful of seeds
out of his pocket.

MELONS AND THEIR COUSINS.

27

••Easy enough to find out,” said Ko, splitting one open
with his finger-nail. “ Yes, there it is, — a cucumber baby
tucked up in the corner.”

“Do you suppose all seeds are babies?” asked Jack,
following Ko’s example and splitting one open.

“ I should n’t wonder,” said Ko.

“ Cucumber seeds and melon seeds are just alike, only

the cucumber's are small
“We're cousins,” piped
“What makes
black seeds, then?

“ Won’t tell,”

“ you *ve spoiled
Go ask the pump-
white seeds, —
and maybe

and white,” said Jack,
up the seed.

your cousins have
\ demanded Ko.

^ l \ screamed the seed,
^ me and I’m mad.

kins why they have
they are cousins, too,
they will tell, but I won’t.”

“I’m sorry I spoiled you,” said Ko.

“ Oh, it does n’t really matter,” muttered the seed.
“ There are so many of us, we can’t all live, and perhaps
I ’d rather be spoiled by you than just dry up or rot in the
ground.”

“Poor thing,” said Ko; then added, “but I’ll tell you
what we ’ll do, Jack, when the pumpkins get ripe.”

“I know,” said Jack, and of course you know, so I
would n't tell you for anything, how they took a pumpkin
when it got ripe, and cleaned all the insides out, and cut

2 $

SEED-BABIES.

such a lovely new moon of a mouth in it, with scallops for
teeth. And I won't tell how they made round holes for
eyes and a wedge-shaped hole for a nose. And I never
will tell how they put a lighted candle inside, and set it on
the gate post one dark night to show their father the way
in, and how the telegraph boy came instead, with a mes¬
sage, and was frightened almost out of his senses.

He was a city boy and not used to Jack-o’-lanterns.

Of course Ko and Jack made the acquaintance of the
pumpkin seeds, and you know as well as I do, how they

found the pumpkin baby
tucked away in one cor¬
ner. so I won't say a word
about it.

“What clid you say about nuts for dinner?” asked
Jack one day.

“I said we were going to have them,” replied Ko.

“ It must be almost dinner time,” said Jack; and sure
enough, just then the dinner bell rang.

“ There’s a baby in this almond, I do believe,” said
Jack, as he cracked his first nut, after dinner had been
eaten and the nuts passed.

“It’s like a bean,” said Ko.

“ Beans are seeds,” said Jack ; “ if you plant them they
will grow.”

“So are nuts seeds,” added Ko; “if you plant them
they 'll grow.”

“Then there must be babies in the nuts,” said Jack,
“ for it’s the little seed-babies that grow up and make big
plants.”

“ Let s look for them in all the nuts,” said Ko; then
added, “Mother, can’t we take our nuts on the porch and
eat them?”

30

SEED-BABIES.

“ It’s

“ Of collide you may,’' said Mother; so off they went,
their nuts in their pockets.

“Now," said Ko, looking very wise, “you see these
almonds grow on trees, and they have to
fall a long way, and they might get bruised,
— * so their coat is hard like wood.”

“ Do you suppose that's the reason
they're so hard?” asked Jack,
as good a reason as any,” said Ko.
“Yes.” said the almond, “that is the
way too many people reason, without
taking the trouble to find out the real
truth about things.”
why are you hard?” asked Ko.
you,” said the almond, who,
good-natured, had been made
Ko’s poor reasoning,
you, because then you would
am hard.”

know if you told me?
eyes in astonishment,
reason you would

%s

from being told,
as you live and
you may find

“ Well,

“ I won’t tell
though naturally
very cross by
“ I won't tell
never know why I
“ Would n't I
asked Ko, opening his
“ No, that's the very
not know. Nobody knows
If you think about it as long
don’t ask anybody's opinion,
out; it’s the only way.”

w

XUTS.

31

“We d need more than one brain, wouldn't we, if
we learned everything everybody tells us to?” asked
Jack.

“No, you wouldn't,'' said the almond; “one brain
isn't much, to be sure; but if you knew enough to use it,
instead of holding it open, like a big-mouthed meal-bag
with a hole in the bottom, for somebody to pour things
into, you would get on very well, and be as wise as
would be good for you.”

“Let ’s not eat any more almonds,” said Jack, “they

i yy

are so cross to us.

“Oh, no," said Ko, “they taste good, and if we eat
them fast and chew them hard, they can’t scold at us.”

“Yes, that's the way people do about everything,” said
the almond with a sigh, as it disappeared in Jack's mouth.

“ Do you think it will
keep on talking after I 've
swallowed it?” he asked, in
alarm.

“Oh, I guess not,” said Ko. “Now
look here! ”

He had cracked a Madeira nut, and
taken the meat out whole.

“I don't see any baby there,”
said Jack.

i

“ Don't be too sure about that,”

32

SEED-BABIES.

said Ko, carefully pulling bis nut apart. “Look there, in
the corner ! Isn’t that a baby? But. it lies in crosswise,
not straight like the others.”

“It’s so crumpled up, you can't tell much about it."
said Jack.

“That’s it,” said the nut, “I am crumpled: I am not
smooth and simple like your bean, but here I am. all folded
up, so you have to look at my cotyledons a long time to
find out how 1 really split open to grow. ’

“How do you?” asked Ko.

k

“Plant me," said the Madeira nut.

The boys planted half a dozen in the garden, and dug

one up every day to
on. They gave it
one day, — what
the shell had split
“Oh, Ko." screamed

see how it was getting
plenty of water and
do you think.’ —
^ open!

• Jack, k ‘ just look

in the crack! How white it has got! ”

They planted it again; and in a day or two. out of the’
crack peeped a little green sprout from the place where the
two crumpled cotyledons were fastened together.

The boys were delighted, but as it would say nothing
to them, they planted it again and watched the stout root
go down into the ground.

“Why don’t its cotyledons come out of the shell?
asked Jack of Ko one day. The nut answered:

NUTS.

33

“ What’s the use in taking that trouble ? My cotyle¬
dons are all folded in the shell, so that it would not be easy

for them to get out. Besides I am
so very sweet that I might get eaten
if I came out. I just stay in the
shell and let my leaves and roots
out; they are fastened to me,
you see, and can draw out all
the food they need. You see my cotyledons
are changed.”

•• Yes, they are quite soft and greenish yellow,” said Ko,
pulling off a piece of the shell.

“There, there! now let me alone to grow in peace,”
said the nut, thinking investigations had been carried far
enough.

But Jack and Ko did not let it alone; they made it tell
them a great many things about itself, and the great secret
of how it was folded, — not at all as it looked to be.

But if you want to know these things, you must go and
plant some Madeira nuts for yourself, and keep them moist.
If they are fresh, some will be sure to
sprout, and if you are as
bright as I think you are, .=s,
they will tell you all
that Ko’s and Jack’s ”
nut told them.

Of course Ko and Jack did
not stop there.

They asked all sorts of nuts about, them¬
selves, and came to the conclusion that every
nut was a seed-baby that only needed a good
chance to wake up and grow.

Only some things puzzled them a great deal.

One was the hazel nut, that did not seem to have any
place to split open like the rest, and the hazel only laughed
at them, and would not tell them how it got out of its shell.
They thought it must be a
baby, for when they cracked
it, there were the two little
leaves and the tiny stump
of a root ready to grow,
just like the other seed-
babies, and of course if it were a baby it would have to
get out of its shelly cradle some time, but it would not
tell how.

MORE

ABOUT NUTS.

MORE ABOUT NUTS.

35

Nor am I going to tell any tales out of school, nor in
school either.

If you want to know, you will have to do as Jack and
Ko did, — plant it and keep it moist.

I can tell you this much, — Jack and his brother were
considerably older as well as wiser before they finally dis¬
covered the hazel nut's secret. But they did not give up
until they had discovered it, which I hope is exactly the
way you will behave.

Another thing that puzzled the boys was the Brazil nut.

They puzzled over
that a long time. They
could n't make up their
minds that it was a seed- :
baby at all; but if not,
what was it?

They planted it, and
one day when they were considerably older and wiser, it
began to grow.

Of course then they knew, or thought they knew, it was
a seed-baby. But never could they find in the Brazil nut
any sign of the little plant, as they had found it in the
other seeds.

“I think." said Jack, one day, “that it is not a seed-
baby at all, for it has n’t told us anything.”

“ Humph !” said the Brazil nut.

36

SEED-BABIES.

“ You had better keep still, Jack; it will begin to tell you,
you don’t understand.” said Ko. warningly.

“ Well,” said the Brazil nut, “ I might tell you that and
tell the truth, but it would be too much trouble. I prefer
to talk about myself.

“ I grow in the forests of Brazil, where it is the hottest
summer all the year round, and I grow on a very tall and
very handsome tree.

“ Twenty or thirty of us grow together in a cup that
looks something like a cocoanut. We fill the space so full,
and are so nicely fitted together, that if any one unpacks us.
he can never put us all back again.

u Some of my cousins have lids to their cups, and these
lids fall open when the cups get ripe, and drop from the
tree, and let the nuts fall out.

“ These are called monkey-cups, because the monkeys
that live in the forest where we grow like to play with
them.

“ My cup has no lid, however, but is apt to break
in its fall from the tall tree, or else we have to lie and
wait and wait for that hard cup to get soft in the wet
ground.

k - We can swell, I tell you ! When we get ready to
grow, our shell is not so very hard, for it has soaked until
it is rather soft, and we just press against it and burst it
open.”

MORE ABOUT NUTS.

37

“ There ! ” said Ko, “ I believe that is the way the hazel
nut does it.”

“Hazel nut? I don’t know anything about hazel nut,
but that is the way we get out of our shell/’

“ But where do you keep your baby ? ” asked Jack.

fc * Keep my baby ? Why, you goose, I am all baby ! I
am just a baby — a seed-baby — and nothing else.”

“But I can’t see your two leaves and your little root,
even when I look with papa’s glass,” said Ko.

“ Oh, well! I am not going to tell you all my secrets.
I know how that is, and if you want to, you will have to
find out.”

“ How can we find out ? ” asked Jack.

“ That is your lookout,” was the reply ; and not another
word could that nut be got to say, then or after.

CRADLES.

“Why do you suppose nuts and things have such dread¬
ful coverings,” Jack asked Ko one day, after he had spent
half an hour scrubbing his hands with lemon and
salt to get the walnut stains off, so he could
go to town with mamma.

The barn floor was covered with butternuts
and black walnuts and their u shucks,” as the
boys called the juicy outer covering.

They had made themselves each a flail such
as farmers used to use to thresh out wheat and
rye, and had been pounding away for a day or
two to get the nuts out of their “ shucks.”

As threshing is generally done by machinery now. a
good many boys and girls have never seen a flail. So 1

CRADLES.

39

must tell you it is two strong sticks, the longest one as long
as your arm. or longer. They are fastened together with a
bit of rope or leather. You hold one end, and with the
other pound the grain or whatever you wish to loosen from
its husk.

Those who have gathered butternuts and black walnuts
know what a thick, juicy hull the nuts are covered with,
and how the juice from these hulls has a very bad taste and
stains the fingers a deep, rich brown, which stays a long
time.

It is very hard to remove even if one tries. Boys
usually do not try, — they let it wear off.

Jack and Ko generally did not trouble themselves much
about it. but this time Jack had an invitation to go to the

city with his mother to a birthday
dinner with half a dozen cousins
about his own age. That is, he could
go if he could get his hands clean.

He knew there would be fun, —

and stories, and

40

SEED-BABIES.

plenty of ice cream. So he was doing his best with a lemon
and a saucer of salt, and Ko was helping him.

“ I think,” said Ko, “ that I know why nuts are covered
up this way. Ever since the almond scolded so when I said
it was hard because it had to fall a good way, I ve been
thinking about it.”

So you see it sometimes does children good to scold
them.

“Well, out with it!" said Jack, who was much more
interested just then in getting his hands clean than in hear¬
ing about nuts.

“Don't you remember," said Ko, “the almonds Uncle
John sent us from California? those fresh ones? They
had an outside covering a little like the butternuts, only

not so much so. Well, you re-
member what the Madeira nut said
about not coming out of its shell ?
It was so sweet it might get
eaten. Now I believe that's
why nuts have such a

mean shuck.'

But hickory

V

nuts don't, nor

a

CRADLES.

41

chestnuts/’ said Jack. “ You pick them up as clean and
shiny as you please. Ow ! ” he roared in the same breath,
‘•don't rub all the skin off my fingers!”

k * I guess that hand is about as clean as I can get it, and
leave any skin on,” said Ko, surveying the very red little
paw which he had been scrubbing. “ I think brown hands
look about as well as red ones, but mother does n't seem to.”

I should say hickory nuts do have bad-tasting shucks,
until they get ripe and fall out/ he went on, seizing Jack’s
other hand, and vigorously applying lemon and salt to the
finger ends.

k * Sometimes the shucks get dry and let the ripe nuts
out, and sometimes they stay on the nuts and fall off with
them.”

‘* That s about it,” said a walnut that had rolled across
the bam floor, near where they were sitting. “ You see our
shells are quite soft at first, and our seeds, though not
as sweet as when we are ripe, are still pretty good to eat.
So we just cover the whole thing over with the bitterest,
stingingest rind we can manage to make, and keep it until
we are too hard for birds and most insects. Even then, we
walnuts keep our hulls, but hickory nuts drop out of theirs,
and so do chestnuts.”

“ Chestnut burrs don’t need to taste very bad,” said Jack,
laughing. “ Nothing would want to bite one again after it
had once got a few stickers in its mouth.”

42

SEED-BABIES.

“ No indeed,” said Ko; “ come to think of it, all nuts
have some sort of horrid outside to them. Remember how

sour the hazel burr is ? "
“The Madeira nut
does n't,” said Jack.

~~ “You can’t say that,"
said Ko, “for you don’t
know how it grows. I
should n't wonder if it has,
for it is ever so much like
a hickory nut."

“Well, Brazil nuts." persisted Jack.

“ Goodness, boy ! Don't you remember what they told
you about the hard cups they grow in ? That’s for the
same thing, only it is hard instead of tasting nasty."

“It s just this way. said the walnut, from its place in
the corner. “ All of us nuts have to be taken care of while
we are growing. Now what do you keep your babies in?

“In their mothers’ arms,” said Jack.

“ I mean when they ’re asleep." said
the nut.

“Cradles,” answered Jack.

“ Well, that s the way with us. These
bad-tasting or hard husks are just the
cradles to keep our babies safe until they are strong enough
to help themselves a little.”

CRADLES.

43

“ Goodness ! ” said Jack.

“ Yes,” said the walnut, “ that’s the way it is.”

“ I believe all seeds have cradles, come to think of it,”
said Ko; “ for the beans have their tough pods, and the
peas, too. Even the pigs won’t eat bean-pods.”

“ How about apples ? ” demanded Jack.

“ They taste bad until they ’re 'most ripe,” said Ko ; “ but
then it seems just as if they asked to be eaten.”

“•Yes,—and cherries, and peaches, and plums, and oh,
lots of things ! ” added Jack.

“ I can tell you about that,” said the walnut, proud of
being able to tell the boys so many
things. “You see, almonds and plums
are very much alike, only almonds have
big, sweet seeds and not very hard shells. Now, they have
bad-tasting husks to keep the seeds from being eaten. Well,
plums have bitter seeds and very hard shells, so they have
sweet and juicy hulls, which birds and people like to eat.
But they throw away the seed, which may chance to fall in
a place where it can grow. So with apples and pears,—
the core is tough and keeps the seeds from being eaten.

“It is a good thing for the seeds to be carried away
from the tree where they grow and thrown in a place where
there is more room for them to live.”

“ There ! don’t you think that is done ? ” Jack demanded,
pulling his hand away from Ko, and looking at it.

44

SEED-BABIES.

u

Yes, I guess you 'll do now." was the reply. “ If they
ask whether we took you for a lobster and tried to boil you,
tell them it’s scrubbing and
not boiling that’s made you
so red."

“ Good-by, Ko," said Jack ;

“ I ’ll eat an extra plate of ice
cream for you."

But Ko did not look very
grateful for Jack’s generous
offer.

I wish they ’d invited me,
too," he said.

“ Oh, it's Tom's birthday
soon, and he's your size, you
know, and it will be your turn
to go; then I 'll have to stay
home and think about it," said
Jack, consolingly.

And off he went.

APPLE SEEDS.

±0

“ Give me one ! ” demanded Jack, a few
days later, as he found his brother disposing
^ of a big apple.

“ This is all I have, but I 11 give you a bite,” Ko
replied.

“Why can't you give me half?” persisted Jack, who
grew hungrier and hungrier for that apple, as he saw his
chances of having it diminish.

“Well, piggy-wig, I will.”

So Ko cut the apple in two, and in doing so, cut across
the core, of course.

“My! said Jack, who had come to look much more
closely at things
since the seeds
began to talk to
him. “What a
cunning cradle
those little black babies have!

They are babies, are n’t they, Ko, — those apple seeds ? ”

“ Of course,” said Ko, with a very superior air.

“How do you know?” rang out the apple seed’s voice,
like a little silver bell.

46

SEED-BABIES.

“I don't — exactly,'* said Ko, good-naturedly, “I just
guessed so, because so many seeds are just the plants’ babies,
and then the walnut said something about it, though I don't
remember just what.”

“There, there, never mind looking!’’ pealed out the
silver voice again, as Ko took up the
seed to examine it.

“ How am I going to
find out ?” demanded Ko.

“Oh, plant me ! I would like
that so much better than being
pulled to pieces. And you would
learn just as much—and more."

“ All right,” and Ko tucked
the apple seed under the ground in the
corner of his garden.

Well, it was a baby, for in the spring
it started to grow, and Ko let it alone, and
after a few years, — what do you think ?

He picked golden apples from that little black apple
seed’s tree!

“I say," said Jack, watching Ko plant it, “what a
scheme it would be to plant all the apple seeds, and peach
seeds, and pear seeds, and plum seeds, — and everything.
Just plant a seed wherever there’s a spot big enough for a
tree.”

APPLE SEEDS.

47

“ I heard about a man who did that,” said Ivo. “ Pie
planted something whenever he went for a walk. He put
fruit trees in the fields and on the edge of the woods.
Wherever he went the fruit trees grew. People found
fruit in unexpected places, and were glad. Even when
he had been dead a great many years, the people picked
his fruit.”

“That is nice,” said Jack. “I mean to save my
seeds.”

“It puzzles me about plums and things,” said Ko.
“ Let’s ask mother for some plums and peaches, and see
how they manage about their seeds. I guess the stones
are seeds, and that they split open to let the baby out.”

J'erhaps you think I am going to tell you all that Jack
and Ko found out about the pits of things, — but you are
very much mistaken. If you want to know these things, as
far as I am concerned, you will have to go to work and
find them out for yourselves. And it is n’t a hard matter,
either ; anybody with a pair of eyes and any sort of a
mind can do it pretty well.

48

SEED-BABIES.

But this I will tell you, — that Jack and Ko did not
stop asking and looking, and when the next summer came,
and they could pick the little seeds from the outside of the
strawberries, and blackberries, and raspberries, and from
the inside of the blueberries, and gooseberries, and currants,
and grapes, and found these mites of seeds to be just tiny
strawberry, and raspberry, and blackberry, and currant.

u . and gooseberry babies, they

$3- thought they knew something
V about seeds!

kif

fit They gathered grain, too,

that summer, — heads of wheat,
and barley, and oats, and ekrs of
corn; and they found them filled
with grains, and they said these
grains were seeds, and that each seed
Jfs was a baby. They ended by saying that
every seed — even the dandelion, and
thistle-down, and the tiniest poppy or
turnip seed — was a baby, and nothing
but a baby. And maybe they were right about that.

But they did more than this, — wliat do you think ?
They said that everything had to grow from a seed, and that
there was no other way to manage it — which shows how
very, very little they knew after all.

For it is one thing to say that a lily can grow from a

APPLE SEEDS.

49

seed, but quite another thing to say it cannot grow except
from a seed.

And right there is where they made their mistake.

SWEET KITTIE CLOVER.

It was sweet Kittie Clover who found that lilies, and
berry bushes, and some other things grow by bulbs and

buds instead of bv seeds.

*

You all know Kittie ; at least,
everybody used to know her, for
there was a song about her. be¬
ginning, “ Sweet Kittie Clover, she
bothers me so."

Well, it was Kittie who showed
Jack and Ko the funny little black
bulbs in the armpits — no, the leaf-
pits — of the big tiger-lily, and how
the sprouts that made new bushes
sometimes came out of the roots of the
old bushes, instead of out of seeds.

But she agreed with the boys that
a great many things in the plant world
had to start from seeds.

She used to gather the flower seeds
and soak them until they had become soft, and then with

SWEET KIT TIE CLOVER.

51

her fathers big magnifying glass, she would look at the
little plants curled up in the seeds.

“Come over here and see something,” she called to Jack
and Ko one morning, for they were next-door neighbors.

Kittie was about half way between Jack and Ko in age,
and the three played together a great deal of the time. Of

course the boys had told
her all the things the
plants had said to them.

This had pleased her so
^ much that she, too, began
talking to the flowers and
other live things about
her.

She used to get into
mischief very often and bother people,
and I suppose that is what the song
meant.

To-day she had to stay in the house, because she had
“accidentally, on purpose,” as the boys said, walked through
a puddle of water and got her feet soaking wet.

So there she sat, wishing for something to do, when she
caught sight of the morning-glory vines, and all at once she
remembered she had put some seeds to soak the day before.
This was just the time to look at them, so she ran and got
them.

52

SEED-BABIES.

Then she called the boys, for she thought she really had
something worth showing.

Jack and Ko came racing over at Kittle’s call, glad of
an excuse to see her, for they always felt badly when she
was in disgrace, almost as badly as if they had been the
cause of it.

Sometimes they were the cause of it. and helped her get
into mischief, but they were always sorry — when it was
too late!

It is so very easy to get into mischief! Kittie said she
never had to try a bit. She had to try hard to do every¬
thing else, but that seemed to do itself.

The boys were glad to see Kittie and glad to see what
she had to show them.

Everybody remembers how the morning-glory looks
when it first comes out of the ground. Two blunt little
leaves appear that do not look at all like the heart-shaped
ones that come later.

Well, Kittie slipped off the black skin of the seed, and
inside she found, packed about by some clear, jelly-like
material, these same two little leaves, as blunt as you

please, and all curled up in the seed.

“That’s worth seeing! ” said Ko. “ It has its

food separate from its cotyledons."

“Is that jelly its food?" demanded Jack.
“ It must be," said Ko. And Kittie thought so, too.

SWEET KIT TIE CLOVER.

53

After a while the morning-glory told them all about it,
and Ko was quite proud to learn he had guessed right.
The jelly is the food, the morning-glory said.

Then Kittle soaked a lot of four-o'clock seeds, and in
each of them found the tender little plant, with no starch
to speak of stored in its cotyledons, but instead, lying
embedded in a floury mass of food.

It would take a long time to tell of all the queer and
lovely seed-babies Kittle and the boys saw in the flowers
that summer. They looked at wild flowers as well as at

those in the garden,, and every¬
where the story was the same.
In the seed was stored away the
plant-baby.

W They had a lot of fun

doing it, and anybody who

likes can have just
as much fun, for the
seeds are always ready to
show their treasures.

A NEW KIND OF SEED.

Oxe day Kittie came upon something funny
enough !

She found what she took to be a lot of round
white seeds grow in 2 : on the back of a leaf.

O O

k * I did n't know seeds grew that way,*’ Jack
said, shaking his head over them. Let s soak
them.*' said he. So they soaked a few, but
when they opened them they could find no
seed-baby, only something soft and without
any form at all.

How Ko laughed when he found what they
were doing !

k * You precious — pair — of — ninnies ! ’ he

€k

€

&

roared,

“Well, what ails you? ’ demanded Jack,
indignantly.

“ Oh, my goodness ! soaking — eggs — to
make them grow 1” gasped Ko.

“ Eggs, nothing of the sort! ” retorted Jack.
But Ko was right, as time proved ; for one day, out
of these little seeds, as Jack and Kittie persisted in

©

A NEW KIND OF SEED.

55

calling them, there came creeping the very funniest and
tiniest of caterpillars.

“ I told you so,” said Ko.

“ Seeds and eggs are the same
thing, anyway,” said Jack, coolly.

“ Yes,” Kittie hastened to add, “ the very
same thing, only little plants hatch out of seeds,
and little animals out of eggs.”

“ There may be something in that,” Ko admitted.

•• You a seed-baby?” Jack demanded, very gently poking
one of the little caterpillars that had already gone to work to
eat the edge off the apple leaf upon which it had been hatched.

But if it was a seed-baby, it did not say so. It just
rolled up into a ball and fell off the leaf on the ground.

“ You >e lost it ! ” screamed Kittie.

“It lost itself,” protested Jack, “and anyway, I guess
that kind of a seed-baby can take care of itself even if it is
lost. They don’t seem to have to be very old to do that.”

The children were so anxious to keep their little cater¬
pillars, that Kittie’s mother gave them a piece of netting,
which they tied over the branch where the caterpillars
were, and so all summer the two boys and Kittie watched
them grow.

Only Kittie’s father said they must be sure that none of
them escaped, for he did n’t want his whole orchard eaten
up by them.

56

SEED-BABIES.

“ How they do eat,” said Ko, as he removed them for
the third time to fresh branches, because there were no
leaves left on the old ones.

“ Their skins are falling off ! ” Jack exclaimed, one day.
And sure enough, it was true. They crawled out of their
skins plumper and bigger than they were before.

“They got too big for their skins,' said Kittie.

“ It s a handy way to grow,” Jack said. “ You just fill
up your old skin, then pop it open and creep out with a
brand new and bigger one on you.”

When they had changed their skins a number of times,
and grown many times as large as they were at first, all the
caterpillars spun soft cocoons and closed the doors behind
them.

When winter came Kittie carried these little cocoons
into the house, and towards spring out came, not the cater¬
pillars, but in
^ their place
s. bright little

y .

^/-—millers.

“ I must say.”

Jack remarked, ‘ those were queer seeds you found, Kittie.”

“ And I must say,” added Kittie, k * that the butterflies
take a roundabout way to get here.”

“They re not butterflies.” said Jack, “they re millers.”
“It’s about the same thing, smarty,” Kittie retorted.

BUMBLE-BEES.

If anybody were to suppose that Kittie and Ko and Jack
were satisfied with caterpillars' eggs that summer, “ right
dar s whar he broke his merlasses jug,” as Uncle Remus
would say. For they took to hunting
eggs just as they had been hunting
seeds before, and if they did n’t
find as many eggs as ' ~ -ngP , “r >

^ ^ life > v

A ‘ r they did

seeds, at least

they found a good many.

And although they could
not find the baby caterpillars, and ants, and flies, and bugs
in the eggs when they broke them open, if they watched
them long enough without breaking, the little creatures
were sure to grow and hatch out of them sooner or
later.

“Everything lays eggs, I believe,” Jack said, one day.

“ Do you suppose bumble-bees do ? "asked Kittie, — then
added very mysteriously, “ I know where there ’s a bumble¬
bee’s nest.”

“How do you know it’s a nest?” demanded Ko.

58

SEED-BABIES.

“ Oli, because,” said Kittie.

“ Humph ! ” said Jack, “ that's no reason.”

“ Well, I know it is, and if you want to get it, I 'll show
you where to find it,” said Kittie.

“ Come along then,” said Ko.

. So they went with her to a place in the corner of the

orchard where an old plank was
lying in the grass.

a There, it s under that,” she
said, pointing to the plank.

The boys looked, and presently
a big bumble-bee came blundering
out from a hole at the edge of the
plank.

“Well, I believe it’s so,” said
Ko, — then added, “ Now you had
better run, Kittie. for I m going to lift up that plank.”
“You don’t dare,” said Kittie.

“ You 'll see if I don't,” he replied, proudly ; “now run,
or you '11 get stung.”

“ Who’s afraid ? ” demanded Kittie, standing her ground.
“ I m not going to run.”

“ You 'll get stung,” said Jack, warningly.

“ So will you,” retorted Kittie.

“ Oh, boys don’t mind such things,” said Ko, with a
very fine air.

BUMBLE-BEES.

59

“Neither do girls,” replied Kittie, obstinately.

“ Well, get stung if you want to ! ’ and Ko suddenly
seized one end of the plank and raised it a little. It was
too heavy for him to move much, but the little he did stir
it, sent out a swarm of very lively and very angry bumble¬
bees.

“There’s one on your apron, Kittie!” yelled Jack,
dancing around and fighting a bee that seemed determined
to make his acquaintance.

“ I know it," Kittie screamed
back, trying hard not to cry and
putting her hands behind her, while
the bee came buzzing up her apron.

But for some reason it tumbled off
and she was saved.

Just then Ko darted past her, making some very queer
noises as he went.

“Boys don't mind such things,'’naughty Kittie called
out, running after him.

And then Jack passed her, bawling as if he were being
killed.

“Boys don’t” — Kittie began, but just then something
struck her on the cheek, and she nearly fell over, it hurt so,
and then something equally dreadful happened to the back
of her neck, and she followed Ko and Jack, bawling as
loudly as they.

60

SEED-BABIES.

Kittie’s mother put something on all the stings to take
out the pain, and then got a book about bees and showed
the children pictures of how they make their nests, and
showed them a picture of the dainty little rooms where
the eggs are stored away.

“ It 's just a bee cradle,” said
Jack, studying one carefully.

“ Yes, that s it," said Ko.

“ I wish we could have seen
them,” said Kittle, wistfully. “It was mean of the bees
not to let us."

“ They were afraid you would spoil their nest and kill
their young ones." mother replied. “ You can hardly blame
them for defending themselves.

“Suppose some great giant came to tear our house
down, and carry off baby Belle to look at her under a
microscope, what would you feel like doing ?”

‘T ’d chop his head off," said Jack, promptly.

u That’s the way the bees felt about it." said mother.

“ Only they could n’t chop our heads off, so they stung
them off," said Kittle, solemnly, caressing the great lump on
her cheek.

“I hope you’ve got cheek enough, lvittie,” said Ko,
tormentingly.

“Well, my eye is n’t swelled shut, anyway," she replied,
looking straight at the spot where Ko's merry brown eye

BUMBLE-BEES.

61

had gone into eclipse. “I know one thing,” she added,
“boys make as much fuss as girls, after all.”

k *And girls hate to get stung as much as boys do,” added
Jack.

“I know another thing,” put in Ko. “I think I’m
acquainted with a boy who won’t look for bumble-bees’
eggs again until he learns a better way to do it.”

FROGS.

Such lots of queer eggs as Kittie and Ko and Jack
found that summer and the next! Once started looking

for eggs they found
them everywhere.

V

Even in the winter
they found spiders’
eegs in the cellar, and

CO 7

the bovs’ father told
«/

the children about
the grasshoppers' eggs lying in the ground where the
mother grasshopper had laid them, all ready to hatch
into little grasshoppers when the spring came.

“ We 'll be on hand when spring comes," Jack said: and
sure enough they were, and about the first thing they found
were the frogs’ eggs in the ponds. * j

FROGS.

63

These eggs were little round balls about as big as peas,
dark-colored on one side, and a dozen or more encased in

something that looked like colorless jelly.
^3 ©)) The children put some of these egg
masses in a jar of water and watched them.
After a while they hatched into tadpoles, or
^ pollywogs, as the children called them.

“ I wonder why things don't hatch right out,
instead of hatching into something else
first/’ Kittie said, as she looked at them.

“I wonder, too,” said Jack. “Butter¬
flies’ eggs make caterpillars, flies’ eggs
make maggots, beetles’ eggs make grubs,
frogs' eggs make pollywogs, — and after
a while the caterpillars turn into butter¬
flies, and the maggots into flies, and the
grubs into beetles, and the pollywogs into
frogs. It s an awful topsy-turvy sort of

^ d °-”

“ But ’ ‘ ~they all come out right in

Kittie.

way to

the end,” said (.

“I'm going ^ j
said Jack, looking ^ ‘

“ and see them get "

“ There’s one already got hind legs,”

said Kittie, pointing to a black little pollywog, and sure

to keep my eye on these fellows,”

-J,j ^ into the jar of pollywogs,
- ^ 2, their legs.’

64

SEED-BABIES.

enough he was the proud possessor of two very tiny
legs.

It was not long before they all had hind legs, and a
right merry time they had swimming about with them stout
little tails, with their new legs to help them.

“ I believe their front legs come out of these little
pockets where the gills are,’ Jack said, one day. “It seems
to me I can see them in there.”

“ I believe you ’re right,” said Ko.

And he was ; for one day, out of those very same open¬
ings there slipped the little forelegs.

“ 1 tell you, they 're getting a new
mouth,” Kittie declared, one day. The
boys laughed at this, but they laughed
too soon, for the pollywogs were getting new mouths.

Their old mouths, which were just little round openings,
by means of which they greedily ate the bread-crumbs and
bits of meat the children fed them, disappeared, and fine,
wide frog mouths opened in another place. Nose openings
appeared too, and finally the tails began to shrink. It
was not long after this that the pollywogs lost their tails
entirely. They just shrank
and shrank until no tails were
left, and in short, the brown
pollywogs turned into little
green frogs.

FBOGS.

65

“ One of them ’s dead! The biggest one, too!” cried
Kittie, one morning.

Sure enough, the little thing was lying on its back in the
water.

•• I think it is drowned,” said Mother, coming at Kittie’s
cries to see what had happened.

Drowned ! ” exclaimed all three children, for the boys
always came over the first thing after breakfast to look at
the “poHys,” as they called their pets.

“ Yes,” said Mother, “it seems strange at first, but you
must remember that frogs have lungs like ours, and breathe
air. They go under water
and sometimes stay a
good while, but after all,
only as long as they can
hold their breath. When
they want to breathe
they have to come to
the top.

“Now these little fel¬
lows, as long as they are
pollywogs, breathe, with
gills, like fishes; but
when they turn into frogs they lose their gills and
get lungs. This water is very deep for them; and
this one, which lias turned wholly into a frog, was not

66

SEED-BABIES.

able to stay on top long enough to get all the air it
needed.

“ You will have to put them in a shallower dish, and
put in some stones, so they can come out when they get
ready.”

“ Poor little thing," said Kittie, laying the froggie on
its back on her hand. “I’m going to try monia,— that
brings people to, sometimes, and maybe it’s only in a
faint.

So she got the ammonia bottle and held it to the
froggies nose. Well, what do you think happened?

Froggie’s leg jerked ! Kittie was so excited that she
spilled a drop of ammonia on one little foot. This made
froggie jump in earnest, and pretty soon he Avas sitting up,
“ winking” his throat, as Jack said, just like any gruAvn-up
frog.

He soon recoA r ered from his droAAming, but the ammonia
had hurt the tender little foot so that it neA'er grew quite
right, and Avhen he had groAvn to be a big fellow, and ate
as many flies and other insects as the children could get for
him, he always had one “game leg," as Ko said, in memory
of the time when he was nearly drowned.

This is a true story, every word of it. and if you Avant
to have some fun, my Avise little readers, I advise you to
get some frogs’ eggs next spring for yourself. You can
Avatcli the legs come out, and the nose and mouth appear.

FROGS.

67

Only be careful and not drown your froggies when they
get through being tadpoles, and be sure to feed them. And
be very sure to keep them in plenty of fresh water from the
start, — otherwise they will die.

OTHER EGGS.

0

When you once begin
to look for things you can
always find them. Kittie
and the boys saw man} r

eggs that spring besides frogs' eggs.

They found a lot of turtles' eggs, for one thing, and
even some snakes' eggs.

And the good old sun hatched these eggs with his warm
rays, just as well as if he had been their mother.

The turtles and snakes did not hatch their own eggs.
My, no! They left that for the sun to do. They did lay
them in the warm sand, though, where the sun could get to

them ; and there the children found
them and left them, and went very
often to see them. But do you
think they saw the little turtles and
snakes ? Not a bit of it.

They forgot all
about them for a
few days, and when
they went to look

OTHER EGGS.

69

they found it was all over with, and only a lot of empty
shells left. They nearly cried, they were so disappointed.
Every little turtle and every little snake had gone off about
its business, and
they could not find f

one, though they
searched a long time.

They found fishes' eggs, too, under the stones in a little
stream that ran through a meadow near the house, and these
they really did watch hatch into little fishes. For Ko built

a wall of stones

about the place
where the eggs
were, loose enough
to let the water
run in and out, but
tight enough to prevent the little fishes from getting away.

That summer, too, the boys and their parents went to
the seashore to stay three weeks and took Kittie with them.

There was wading, and bathing,
and swimming, and sailing, and in the
course of their wadings and sailings the
children found many curious things.

What pleased them as well as anything, they found the
eggs of many strange creatures.

They found that starfish and sea-urchins lay eggs. But

70

SEED-BABIES.

what surprised them most of all, — they learned that “ sea-
shells ” lay eggs ! At least, the animals that live in the
shells do.

And such queer cradles as some of these eggs had !

Those of the conch shell were long lines of flat cases like
pods, Jack said ; and in these pods were the tiniest little
conch shells, so very little that they had to look through the
magnifying glass to really see them.

And the sharks' eggs ! Safe in their tough black cradles
with long tendrils at the four corners, they lay. The ten-

Shahk’s Eggs.

drils, they were told, fastened the sharks’ eggs to the weeds
and things in the bottom of the sea, so they would n’t be
dashed about by the waves, and the baby sharks could have
a chance to grow in safety.

“ 1 don’t see why such ugly things as sharks, that some¬
times eat people up, need have their eggs so well cared for,”
Kittle said, one day.

OTHER EGGS.

71

“Everything's eggs are cared for,” Jack said, “and I
believe almost everything lays eggs, too.”

u Everything that s alive has to come out of an egg or
a seed. I believe,” said Ko.

And he was n't- so very far wrong !

BIRDS’ EGGS.

Of course with all their egg and seed hunting the chil¬
dren did not forget the birds.

They had chickens and pigeons to watch, and there were

all the wild birds to build
nests for them.

A great many birds
built in then' yards, be¬
cause the birds seemed to
know they would be safe
there.

Of course the children
often went and looked into the nests where they were low
enough so they could. But they were careful about it. and
never handled the eggs or the young birds. The old birds
seemed to know they had just come to visit, and treated
them quite politely.

The catbird that had its nest in the lilac bush, though,
was sometimes rather cross, and would fly at them and
scream.

“I must reason with that catbird, Kittie said.

BIRDS’ EGGS.

73

So she sat down and reasoned with it, and the children
thought it behaved rather better after that. For myself, I
have no doubt it did.

“ Oh, mommy, mommy,

’ittle kitten-birds ! ” baby
Belle called out, one day.

She was getting to be very
much of a talker, and was
also very much interested
in watching the birds and
things with the other
children.

Sister Kittie ran to look, and sure enough there were
three little dots of catbirds.

The man who took care of the garden had lifted baby
Belle up so she could see them.

“ I wonder what is in it,” Jack said that same day, as
he held a little box in his hand that the postman had
brought. It had his name on it, and he felt proud, I can
tell you.

u Why don’t you open it ? ” demanded Ko.

“ You go call Kittie and I will,” he said.

So Ko got Kittie to come, and then Jack opened the box.

It was from Uncle John, who was then in Florida. He
had heard about the hoys’ interest in looking for eggs, and
had sent them — guess what ?

74

SEED-BABIES.

A long, white alligator’s egg.

“ Think of an alligator coming out of a little thing like
that! ” said Kittie.

u No worse than that old rooster
coming out of a little hen’s egg,”
said Ko. firing a chip at the rooster, who merely flapped his
wings and crowed in reply.

But an alligator is as b-i-g as a big man, and ever so
much bigger,” Kittie objected.

“ Not when it is hatched,*’ persisted Ko.

“ No, and then it’s all so queer
about eggs, anyway,” admitted
Kittie; “ they do hatch out such
queer things.”

“ I wonder if angle worms come
out of eggs, too,” Jack said, as a
robin hopped across the path with
a line fat angle worm in his bill.

Ck No doubt of it.” said Ko.
xAnd to be sure there was no doubt
of it. he went and asked his father,
who told him some very interesting
things about angle worms’ eggs.

But I am not going to tell you what it was, for there
are a few things I should like to leave for you to find out
for yourselves.

BIRDS' EGGS. -

75

Only this I will say, — if you look in the right place,
at the right time, you no doubt will be able to find any

of angle worms’ eggs.

you can watch them hatch out, too, if you know'
go about it.

haps the angle worms will tell you how that is.
am not going to.

have told you enough,” as the bean said to Jack.
And like Jack, I hope you will say, “Well, I guess
[ can find out some more for myself.”

For so you can. If you keep your eyes open and
look at things, there is no end to what you will find.
The more you
look, the more
you will v T ant
to, — that’s the
best of it.

Anybody can make
beans and other
things talk, and I
think it is rather a
shame for people not
to know about beans.

Don’t you ?

quantity

And

how to

Per

But I

I

.* w W-w

THE BEST TEXT-BOOKS

FDR COMMON SCHOOLS

FRYE’S GEOGRAPHIES

T(?e mosf advanced views of fetching
geograph y ba rnponi^ed

WENTU/ORTH’5 ARITHMETICS

Unsurpassed i r? ar rangerr>enf. method,

evnd ^ccur^cv

PRINCE'S ARITHMETIC BY GRADES

Soured ir? meh^od, .satisfactory bo head yerj
&Ht active ho pupils

MONTGOMERY^ AMERICAN HISTORIES

The leading evenks of- American history
with fpcir causes aj?d hpeir results
d isfi rj c Hy a x )d grapt)ica 1 [y shoWn

BLA1.SDELL5 PHYSIOLOGIES

True, scientitic, pra ctical. teachable

T ARBELL’5 LESSONS IN LANGUAGE

Language apd gr^rrm>ar barn^onijed

STICK NEY’S READERS

A*series op care f ally— g'r a ded 17 ot
thoroughly-bested reading booKs

GINN AND COMPANY! WRITING BOOKS

A near, legible b^d
acquired with ease and rapidity

CiNN 6c COMPANY PUBLISHERS